Allow me to pull you close
by Rue Bear
Summary: They have one sick baby, they need each other more than ever.


Toby leaned on the door frame, coffee in hand just watching her. Watching them, she looked so tiny lying in the medical cot, wires and tubes running across and into her body and then Happy, her mother, who looked so small curled up in the large hospital chair, leaning onto the edge of the cots mattress, her fingers stroking over the arm of their little one.

Toby's eyes were red and swimming with tears as he listened to Happy softly sing, her voice wavering and cracking at points,

" _You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,You make me happy when skies are gray,You'll,never know dear, how much I love you, Please don't take my sunshine away"_

she all but spoke the last words, like some kind of plea to the world. The Doc closed his eyes as tears ran down his face. He was a doctor, but he had no words to comfort her, to sooth her distress for he was in the very same position. A parent who's child was very seriously sick. He understood the medical terms the doctors threw at them, and he understood the feelings they were suffering, but It all meant nothing right now. To suddenly be in the shoes of the parents he had to speak to during his paediatric rotation. It was unbearable, he had never sympathised with the frustrated and cranky parents he had had to deal with more.

Happy was quiet and Toby was about to make his presence known when she spoke again, her voice a little shaky.

"sweetheart, I need you to pull through this, I need you to fight. I don't know how to be without you now...I'm sorry honey...I should have been there, I should have been with you...I might have noticed..I could have...I maybe could have caught it sooner."

She gave a sob that shattered Toby's already damaged and worn heart, he shook his head, she shouldn't feel any guilt. Not even he, a trained doctor and her father had thought to have seen anything that would have suggested meningitis before they left, he thought she had just been fussy and in the beginnings of teething. But she had been in discomfort,and he hadn't noticed. He had failed to be the best parent he could as he had promised her the day she was born. He had to bite his lip to stop his own sob. They were a week away from her shots, if they had just been done at 8 weeks this might have never happened. Toby felt sick, he had been the one who wanted to wait till 12 weeks,but it was to late. She deserved better.

" I promise, I _promise_ I won't ever leave you again, I'll give the world up if it means we get to take you home again. _Please_ baby, fight this. We need you to.." Her sobs had over taken her.

Toby set down the coffee, crouching beside Happy rubbing her leg as it was all he could do right now. He was struggling to hold it together for them both. He was really struggling.

* * *

His breathing was coming in gasps now and Happy was worried, she had never seen him like this, she shifted lowering herself to the floor beside him, pushing him gently so he slid to sit on the floor with her. "Toby?..Toby!?" she grabbed the sides of his face trying to get him to look at her, he just gripped at her arms, sobbing. She wrapped her arms around him pulling him closer as he cried his heart out on her shoulder. She swayed them softly like she did with the baby, shushing softly, quietly telling her it was all ok, rubbing and patting her back. It appeared to work on any person irrelevant of age as Toby's sobs eventually turned to sniffles. He pulled back to look at her, but his grip still firm on the bottom of her cardigan. His voice was croaky and crackled as he spoke, "I love you, I love her. I let you both down. I made a mistake, a stupid, blind mistake" his eyes began to well up again and Happy quickly wiped them away, she gave him a small smile "hey, hey hey, no, you didn't make a mistake-" he interrupted, objecting "I'm her dad, I'm a doct-" she placed her hand across his mouth stopping him, she held eye contact making sure he was listening

" _You,_ are the best dad in the world, you love her and you love me _beyond_ limits, that's what is important right now. She is going to pull through this. We all are. What she needs is for you to be here, and you are. We _can not_ beat ourselves up for this,"

she paused only briefly.

"I _know_ you were listening, and I _know_ how you shook your head when I tried to blame myself,and I _know_ you are right, but I won't let you blame yourself either. This has happened, now it's about how we move forward from this. Things are still unknown,but we are going to get through this the same we have gotten through so many other things, she slowly removed her hand from his mouth to softly touch her lips to hers, "Together." He rest his head against hers, nodding softly, He repeated the word taking comfort in it. _"Together"_


End file.
